This 12 months’s September Apple occasion has been comparatively uncommon, not solely due to the pandemic and online-only nature of the present, but in addition as a result of amongst the brand new {hardware} releases there’s been an evident lack of a brand new iPhone at this time limit.
Apple nevertheless didn’t disappoint, and managed to showcase brand-new iPads and Apple Watches. Amongst the brand new pill line-up, we discover the brand new 8th technology iPad which sees an improve in its computing capabilities with the brand new A12 chip, and the latest iPad Air which sees a complete redesign, adopting the design queues of the iPad Pro siblings, and likewise for the primary time introducing the brand new Apple A14 chipset – the trade’s first 5nm processor.
| Apple iPad Comparison | ||||||
| iPad (2019) |
iPad (2020) NEW |
iPad Air (2019) |
iPad Air (2020) NEW |
|||
| SoC | Apple A10
2x Hurricane |
Apple A12
2 × Vortex @ 2.5GHz |
Apple A14
2 × Firestorm |
|||
| Display | 10.2″ 2160×1620 IPS LCD |
10.5″ 2224×1668 IPS LCD DCI-P3, True Tone |
10.9″ 2360×1640 “Liquid Retina” IPS LCD DCI-P3, True Tone |
|||
| Dimensions | 250 x 174.1 x 7.5mm 483g |
250 x 174.1 x 7.5mm 490g / 495g |
250.6 x 174.1 x 6.1mm 456g / 464g |
247.6 x 178.5 x 6.1mm 458g / 460g |
||
| RAM | 3GB LPDDR4 | ? | 3GB LPDDR4X | ? | ||
| NAND | 32 / 128GB | 64 / 256GB | 64 / 256GB | |||
| Battery | 32.9Wh | ? | 30.8Wh | |||
| Front Camera | 1.2MP, F/2.2 | 7MP, F/2.2 | ||||
| Rear Camera | 8MP, F/2.4, 1.12 µm | 8MP, F/2.4 | 12MP, f/1.8 | |||
| Cellular | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 9) | UE Category 16 LTE (1Gbps) with 4×4 MIMO and LAA | ||||
| SIM Size | NanoSIM | NanoSIM + eSIM | ||||
| Wireless | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MIMO, BT 4.2 LE, GPS/GLONASS |
802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MIMO, BT 5.zero LE, GPS/GLONASS |
802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2×2 MIMO, BT 5.zero LE, GPS/GLONASS |
|||
| Connectivity | Apple Lightning 3.5mm headphone jack |
Apple Lightning | USB-C | |||
| Launch OS | iOS 13.1 | iOS 14 | iOS 13.1 | iOS 14 | ||
| Launch Price | (Wi-Fi / Cellular)
$329/$459 (32G) |
(Wi-Fi / Cellular)
$329/$459 (32G) |
(Wifi / Cellular)
$499/$629 (64G) |
(Wifi / Cellular)
$599/$729 (64G) |
||
Starting off with probably the most thrilling pill at present, which is the brand new iPad Air:
At the center of the brand new pill we discover Apple’s latest A14 chip, which is a keystone part of the brand new technology gadgets and also will seemingly energy the following technology iPhone as soon as it will get launched later this 12 months. Apple’s occasion disclosures this 12 months have been a bit complicated as the corporate was evaluating the brand new A14 metrics towards the A12, provided that’s what the earlier technology iPad Air had been utilizing till now – we’ll want so as to add some correct context behind the figures to extrapolate what this implies.
On the CPU aspect of issues, Apple is utilizing new technology massive efficiency cores in addition to new small energy environment friendly cores, however stays in a 2+4 configuration. Apple right here claims a 40% efficiency increase on the a part of the CPUs, though the corporate doesn’t specify precisely what this metric refers to – is it single-threaded efficiency? Is it multi-threaded efficiency? Is it for the massive or the small cores?
What we do know although is that it’s in reference to the A12 chipset, and the A13 already had claimed a 20% increase over that technology. Simple arithmetic thus dictates that the A14 could be roughly 16% quicker than the A13 if Apple’s efficiency metric measurements are constant between generations.
On the GPU aspect, we additionally see an identical calculation as Apple claims a 30% efficiency increase in comparison with the A12 technology because of the brand new…
